Covenant Christian Academy - Civil Design

The Covenant Christian Academy Civil Design team has partnered with Covenant Christian Academy (CCA) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to improve the utilization and safety of the facilities at the rear of the main building. The team worked with David Sonju, Headmaster at CCA and client representative for the school, to achieve two major goals for this project. The first goal was to redesign the rear parking lot to create a grass recreation area while integrating the remaining paved area into an improved student drop-off/turn-around. The design considered stormwater run-off and drainage, including conversion of impervious area to pervious area. The second goal was to design a portico/covered walkway structure that connects the rear entrance of the main building to the entrance of the Fine Arts Building. The design incorporates a combined straight and curvilinear steel-frame support structure, and a truss roof support system with steel decking. The team will provide its design work to CCA and their design consultant, H. Edward Black and Associates, Ltd., to finalize the required construction drawings and obtain professional approvals to build the project.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2020/1019/thumbnail.jp

Marginal Eyespots on Butterfly Wings Deflect Bird Attacks Under Low Light Intensities with UV Wavelengths

Predators preferentially attack vital body parts to avoid prey escape. Consequently, prey adaptations that make predators attack less crucial body parts are expected to evolve. Marginal eyespots on butterfly wings have long been thought to have this deflective, but hitherto undemonstrated function.Here we report that a butterfly, Lopinga achine, with broad-spectrum reflective white scales in its marginal eyespot pupils deceives a generalist avian predator, the blue tit, to attack the marginal eyespots, but only under particular conditions-in our experiments, low light intensities with a prominent UV component. Under high light intensity conditions with a similar UV component, and at low light intensities without UV, blue tits directed attacks towards the butterfly head.In nature, birds typically forage intensively at early dawn, when the light environment shifts to shorter wavelengths, and the contrast between the eyespot pupils and the background increases. Among butterflies, deflecting attacks is likely to be particularly important at dawn when low ambient temperatures make escape by flight impossible, and when insectivorous birds typically initiate another day's search for food. Our finding that the deflective function of eyespots is highly dependent on the ambient light environment helps explain why previous attempts have provided little support for the deflective role of marginal eyespots, and we hypothesize that the mechanism that we have discovered in our experiments in a laboratory setting may function also in nature when birds forage on resting butterflies under low light intensities

Rural waste generation: a geographical survey at local scale

"The paper examines the per capita waste generation rates from from rural areas of Neamț County (Romania) using thematic cartography. Geographical approach of this issue is difficult because the lack of a geostatistic database at commune scale. Spatial analysis of waste indicators reveals several disparities between localities. Comparability of data between communes located in various geographical conditions must be carrefully made according to local waste management systems. Several dysfunctionalities are outlined in order to compare these results, on the one hand, between localities and on the one hand, between recent years. Geographical analysis of waste generation rates is imperative for a proper monitoring of this sector. Data from 2009, 2010 and 2012 shows that rural waste management is in a full process of change towards a more organized, stable and efficient system." (author's abstract

Golgi studies on insects Part I: The optic lobes of Lepidoptera

Variants of the Golgi-Colonnier (1964) selective silver procedure have been used to show up neurons in insect brains. Neural elements are particularly clearly impregnated in the optic lobes. Three classes of nerve cells can be distinguished; perpendicular (class I), tangential (class II) and amacrine cells (class III). There are m any types of neurons in each class which together have a very wide variety of form. Their components are related to specific strata in the optic lobe regions. Short visual cells from the retina terminate in the lamina in discrete groups of endings (optic cartridges). Pairs of long visual fibres from ommatidia pass through the lamina and end in the medulla. Class I cells link these two regions in parallel with the long visual fibres and groups of these elements define columns in the medulla. These in turn give rise to small-field fibres that project to the lobula complex. Tangential processes intersect the parallel arrays of class I cells at characteristic levels. Some are complex in form and may invade up to three regions. Another type provides a direct link between the ipsi- and contralateral optic lobe. Amacrine cells are intrinsic to single lobe regions and have processes situated at the same levels as those of classes I and II cells. A fifth optic lobe region, the optic tubercle, is connected to the medulla and lobula and also receives a set of processes from the mid-brain. There are at least six separate types of small-field relays which could represent the retina mosaic arrangement in the lobula

Protective display and sound production in some New World arctiid and ctenuchid moths

Volume: 49Start Page: 161End Page: 18

The spectral sensitivities of identified receptors and the function of retinal tiering in the principal eyes of a jumping spider

1. The functional organisation of the central retina of the anterior median (AM) eyes of a jumping spider,Plexippus (Salticidae) is examined by anatomical, electrophysiological and optical methods. A model of the eye is derived from the data. 2. The anatomy of the AM eye is similar to that of salticid eyes described by Land (1969a) and Williams and McIntyre (1980). There are four tiers of receptors of which only the most proximal (Layer I) is a regular mosaic with rhabdoms designed to have light-guide properties. The receptor population of Layer I is homogeneous, whereas in Layers II–IV more than one receptor type can be considered to contribute to each layer. 3. Intracellular recordings from AM photoreceptors reveal only two spectral classes: green cells with peak responses at ca. 520 nm, and ultraviolet (UV) cells with peak responses at ca. 360 nm. ERGs from intact retinae exhibit similar peaks. Spectral sensitivities from pooled intracellular recordings from green cells and ERGs correspond reasonably closely. The comparison does not, therefore, support the possibility that the retina contains receptors with peak responses at longer wavelengths, although it does not exclude it. 4. Spectrally characterised cells were marked by the injection of Lucifer Yellow. From the results of 13 successful injections, (a) peripheral Layer I and peripheral and central Layer II cells are green receptors; (b) Layer IV cells are UV receptors. Central Layer I and Layer III receptors were not marked. 5. The chromatic aberration, focal length and other optical parameters of the corneal lens of the AM eye were measured directly. The lens functions essentially as a single-surface lens of refractive index 1.40, and, together with the curved interface between the anterior chamber of the eye and the receptor matrix, forms a telephoto system. 6. The spacing between receptor Layers I and IV is matched to the chromatic aberration of the eye; if green light from an object in front of the spider is focused on Layer I, UV light will be focused on Layer IV (and Layer III). 7. The distal ends of Layer I receptors form a staircase, those lying laterally being closer to Layer II than those lying medially. This staircase enables the spider to receive in-focus images from objects at distances between ca. 3 cm — ∞ in front of it. It is suggested that the scanning movements of the retinae described by Land (1969b) serve to sweep an image across the staircase so that it will be in focus on some part of Layer I, provided that the object is within that range of distances. 8. Retinal tiering (including the staircase of Layer I) compensates both for the chromatic aberration of the dioptrics of the eye and for its inability to accommodate

Martín Rivas

Con Alberto Blest Gana (Chile, 1830-Francia, 1920) se instaura en Chile la novela realista bajo la doble guía de Balzac y Stendhal. Con su novela de costumbres político-sociales, Martín Rivas (1862), nos ofreció el primer gran friso de una sociedad en una fecha crucial de su historia, Blest Gana nos legó una obra que continúa sirviendo de acicate a las generaciones actuales y a quienes desde distintas perspectivas disciplinarias intentan comprender rasgos fundamentales de la sociedad chilena. En suma, una obra y un narrador capitales en la literatura de Chile. La presente edición sigue a la realizada por la editorial Quimantú en 1973, sin embargo se han compulsado tanto la primera publicación en forma de folletín como impresiones posteriores